A Long Way From Here This Far Southern Shore Poem by Francis Duggan

A long way from here this far southern shore
From the road out of Millstreet that leads to Rathmore
And from the old rushy fields where Cails and Finnow flow
On to the Blackwater by ditch and hedgerow.

Yet I can see old Clara when I visualize
And the little brown lark above the bracken rise
Like a musical speck in the gray morning sky
I can hear him singing as to the cloud World he fly.

And the distinctive babble of the silver tongued rill
As it rushes downland from the fields by the hill
And the scratchy notes of the dipper in the river I hear
When the fields wear their flowers in the Spring of the year.

In dreams I am back home near old Millstreet Town
Where I used to live when my hair was dark brown
My friends of the past they have not aged a day
In my subconscience they are not growing older and gray.

A long way from here the homeland of the roo
Of gum and wattle, koala, wombat and cockatoo
To the home of the jackdaw, badger, rook and gray crow
Where the Cails and Finnow to the Blackwater flow.